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Tagging and Transcription for Chinese Heritage Records

            Chinese HeritageChinese HeritageChinese HeritageChinese HeritageChibese HeritageChinese HeritageChinese HeritageChinese Heritage

 

From 1882 to 1943 the United States Government severely curtailed immigration from China to the United States, passing a series of laws whose result was the documentation of international movements of many Chinese nationals.

Certain Federal agencies were particularly active in enforcing the exclusion laws, including the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which in 2003, became the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), and the U.S. District Courts.  

Many of the records created to implement the Chinese exclusion laws are now in the custody of the National Archives and have been digitized. The records are a major resource for the study of Chinese immigration and Chinese-American travel, trade, and social history from the late-19th to mid-20th century. Because many documents relate to individual immigrants, they are invaluable for the study of Chinese and Chinese-American family history. 

For more information about these records, please visit us online at https://www.archives.gov/research/chinese-americans

Please help us tag, comment, and transcribe these records for greater access.


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Transcription

Chinese Heritage Transcription

Help us transcribe records from Record Group 85: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Record Group 21:
Records of District Courts of the United States

 

Start transcribing now

Tagging

Chinese Heritage Tagging

We're looking for help tagging very specific details in these records. Before you begin, please see the instructions below for details and guidance.

 

Start tagging records now

Note: Review the contributions in the Show Details section to determine whether additional contributions (tags, transcriptions, and/or comments) can be made.

Tags

For this special project, we are looking for specific tags that will help provide greater access to these records. Please review the following guidance to create consistent tags for these records.

Create tags for the following eight fields of information:

Name: Create a single tag for the entire name, as written in the document.           

Examples:
Gin Art Wing
Hui Tong Ping

Aliases: Create a single tag for each alias listed in the file.

Examples:
Stephen F. Lee
Johnson Sing

Occupation: Create a single tag for each occupation of the individual.  

Some common occupations were: 
Farmer
Merchant 
Cook 
Laborer 

Current Residence: Use the following format for consistency:
City State (and country if outside USA). Be sure to omit any commas.

Examples:
Los Angeles California
Nogales Arizona
Tijuana Mexico

Village/Home District: Create a single tag for each location. Use the following format for consistency: City State (and country if outside USA). Be sure to omit any commas.

Examples: 
Nam Tung Village Sun Ning District Canton Province China
Los Angeles California
Tijuana Mexico
Hermasillo Sonora Mexico

Associated Cities: Create a single tag for each location where the individual has lived and worked. Use the following format for consistency: City State (and country if outside USA). Be sure to omit any commas.

Examples: 
Los Angeles California
Nogales Arizona
Tijuana Mexico
Mexicali Baja California Mexico

Name of Witnesses: Create a single tag for the entire name of each witness, as written in the document.

Examples:
Gin Art Wing
Hui Tong Ping
Frank Miller
Mrs. John Robertson

Occupation of Witnesses: Create a single tag for each occupation of each witness.  

Some common occupations were: 
Farmer
Merchant 
Cook 
Laborer 
Hotel Owner
Housewife

Comments

For additional searchability, you can add comments for the file. Some guidance on creating consistent comments for these records:

  • The comments can include information from the file on the following fields: Name; Alias; File Number; File Date; Residence; Associated City; Age; Estimated Date of Birth; Village/Home District; Date of Original Immigration; Vessel Name(s); Date of Prior Visit(s); Occupation; Name of Company; Partner in Business; Previous Occupation; Association Names/Files; Registration Number; Registration Location/Date.  
  • Create a separate comment for any additional noteworthy information you find in the file.   
  • For consistency, the comment structure should include the field title followed by a colon (:) then the information. Separate each field by a semi-colon (;).  
    • Example: Name: Ping Kong Pung; Alias: Pang Kong Ping; File Number: 494/55; File Date: 1928; Associated Cities: Los Angeles, California,Hawaii; Age: 32; Estimated Date of Birth: 11/20/1895; Date of Prior Visit: 1914; Occupation: Dentist, Student 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

 

You will need to have an account in the National Archives Catalog to contribute transcriptions, tags, and comments.  Visit our Register and Get Started page for step-by-step instructions.  Check out our Resources page for instructions and videos to help you with your work as a Citizen Archivist. 

As you transcribe, you work is autosaved.  When you have finished with the page, click Publish and Close. Your transcription has been added to the Catalog and shortly all the words you typed will be searched every time someone conducts a search at catalog.archives.gov.  

After clicking on the transcription or tagging mission, use the location filter on the left side to limit your results by National Archives location. 

For example, you may want to work on records found at the National Archives at Riverside.  In this case go to the Refine By: Location filter on the left side.  Click on the blue link for National Archives at Riverside.  The records will reload and display only records from that location.

We're excited that you are enjoying this special Citizen Archivist project. We always have a variety of tagging and transcription missions available to work on.  Visit our Missions page to see what's currently featured.  Additionally, you can always tag, transcribe, and comment on any digitized record in the National Archives Catalog.  To learn how to search through the more than 115 million pages of digitized records, watch our video Searching the National Archives Catalog to Find Records to Transcribe.

 

 

 

 

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